Nature Table Archive 2023
September 2023 update:
January 2023
January is a monochrome month. But instead of colours a new spectrum of sounds starts to be heard. The robin is already singing quietly its pensive notes, and in a month the blackbird will also be practising its spring song under its breath. The calls and chirps of the garden birds continue as they squabble over the bird feeders.
But this month properly belongs to the song thrush, perched on a top bough, ecstatically declaring its huge variety of phrases – and repeating each two or three times as if to hammer home the point. Listen out for it at dusk – and its message that the year has turned. Our own Thomas Hardy put it best in his poem The Darkliing Thrush:
Winter 2022-23
During the winter you can see lots of birds in your garden, especially if you have a bird feeder.
The birds you could see are: finches (bullfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch, greenfinch), tits ( blue, great, marsh, coal, long-tailed), robin, wren, dunnock, house sparrow, blackbird, starling, nuthatch, treecreeper, great-spotted woodpecker, green woodpecker, thrushes, magpie, jackdaw, carrion crow, jay, collared dove, wood pigeon and sparrowhawk.
If you’re lucky, you will see a goldcrest, a brambling, a blackcap or a siskin. If you’re very lucky, you will see a fieldfare or a redwing. And if you are very, very lucky you will see a waxwing or a hawfinch.
There might also be a surprise sighting. I spotted a female reed warbler and a yellowhammer once in my garden.
Whichever bird you see, it will give you such pleasure to be able to see them in your garden!
As well as giving them a helping hand, feeding garden birds also brings the joy of seeing different species up close.
What should you feed the birds?
Here are a few suggestions:
Sunflower seeds: These are rich in necessary protein and unsaturated fats. Black sunflower seeds are better to use than striped sunflower seeds due to their higher oil content.
Nyjer seeds: These are very small, black seeds which are rich in fat and oil. Special Nyjer feeders are available at garden centres. These seeds are a favourite of goldfinches and siskins.
Peanuts: These are rich in fat and protein and are popular with tits, greenfinches, house sparrows, nuthatches, woodpeckers and siskins.
Fruits such as apples, pears and plums make great bird food due to their high water content and the fact that they are energy-rich with simple sugars. These can be halved and left on either on the bird table or on the ground and will be enjoyed by robins, blackbirds, thrushes and waxwings.
Fat balls: These will provide a great boost in calories to a wide range of species.
I hope you found this useful.
Enjoy your birdwatching!
Edo Schmidt.
Spring 2023
The days are getting warmer and the nights shorter: the infra-red trail cams in my garden have been recording at least three hedgehogs scurrying about since the end of March, and a lactating vixen visits most nights.
The first of the butterflies to appear in spring is the large, leaf-shaped brimstone – as yellow as the primroses, cowslips and daffodils it coincides with. Now the blues will start to appear in Lankham Bottom and Norden Hill, and the red admirals and peacocks on our garden flowers.
In our gardens, too, the blackcap has been singing his tentative, muddled song, and the chiffchaff has been calling out his name since early April. In the middle of that month the first swallows and house martins arrived. The latter are now doing battle with the sparrows for their bowl-shaped nests in the eaves of Markers in Duck Street, but the Nelsons’ ones opposite were kept clear for the new arrivals by Patrick’s blocking the entrances with paper – to be removed when the house martins appeared, and are now occupied by them. Perhaps the most glorious treasure of spring is the song of the blackbird, its rolling contralto song to be heard best at dawn and dusk on quiet days. It is perhaps best heard with the dawn chorus in the background – worth getting up at 5.am for!
August 2023
The big butterflies are back! Or were until today – when I had to wait for a pause in the rain to let out a peacock butterfly that was fluttering at my window pane.
But for the previous week, as soon as the sun comes out the lavender has been filling with bumble bees which are joined by peacocks, large whites, red admirals, small tortoiseshells, meadow browns, the odd comma – and even a hummingbird hawk moth. These hover on small triangular wings, like a hummingbird, which flap so fast, up to 80 times a second, that they can be seen only as a blur.
All these wonderful creatures take the place of the flowers we enjoyed in July, providing a kaleidoscope of colour moving around the garden.
September 2023. During that warm spell in the beginning of September Richard Edwards found – to his alarm – a large grass snake in his pond. Grass snakes are good swimmers and like ponds, not least because they can eat the frogs. However Alex Butler rescued it, and it was rehomed in my pond. When picked up by Alex it had initially feigned dead, which they do in the hope of putting predators off, but once coiled up on some new water lilies it returned to life and spent some time sunbathing by the poolside.
“Weeds thrive in the company of humans. They aren’t parasites, because they can exist without us, but we are their natural ecological partners, the species alongside which they do best. They relish the things we do to the soil: clearing forests, digging, farming, dumping nutrient-rich rubbish. They flourish in arable fields, battlefields, parking lots, herbaceous borders. They exploit our transport systems, our cooking adventures, our obsession with packaging. Above all they use us when we stir the world up, disrupt its settled patterns. It would be a tautology to say that these days they are found most abundantly where there is most weeding; but that notion ought to make us question whether the weeding encourages the weeds as much as vice versa.” RICHARD MABEY
October 2023
Liz Flight writes: ‘Has anyone read the beautiful book called “The lost words” by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. The introduction explains……
“Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children. They disappeared so quietly that at first almost no one noticed. The words were those that children used to name the natural world: acorn, adder, bluebell, bramble, conker – gone ! “
‘The Cattistock children that I see don’t appear to have lost any of the ‘natural world words’ listed in the book and certainly a commonly used word in our house right now is conker – ‘we are off conkering mum, see you later’ !
‘On the last count our bag of conkers reached 200 ! A great year and well up on 2022.
‘In another Cattistock house the conkers are being turned into masterpieces by young Charlie (aged 9) and you’ll be so impressed by this little fella whose arms and legs are twigs. His body is a conker and whilst we can’t see it he also has a back pack which is a flattened conker. Charlie found the fossil himself (which the man is stood on) down at the beach. The feather is a staff. The man’s name is Jimmy.
‘I’d recommend the “Lost Words” to anyone of any age, the poetry and illustrations are stunning. Personally I believe our local children are well connected to the natural world, in fact the only word we are close to losing here is possibly “BUS” !’
2023 November, the month when we start to think about heating our houses…
I have an open log fire, and when I look at the flames I remember an old poem about the burning of wood. It is anonymous as far as I know – though it apparently appeared in The Hunters’ Journal in 1924.
‘Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year,
Chestnut’s only good they say,
If for logs ’tis laid away.
Make a fire of elder tree,
Death within your house will be;
But ash new or ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold.
‘Birch and fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last.
It is by Irish bakers said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E’en the very flames are cold
But ash green or ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown.
‘Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke,
Apple wood will scent your room
Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom.
Oaken logs, if dry and old
Keep away the winter’s cold
But ash wet or ash dry
A king shall warm his slippers by.’
I can vouch for many of these woods’ characteristics and flavours; certainly in Ireland it is deemed very bad luck to kindle a fire using elder wood, although they do make flutes and whistles out of its hollowed stems.
Apparently one Honor Goodhart had also come across the poem, because she published her own version in Punch on 27th October 1920.
Logs to Burn
‘Logs to burn; logs to burn;
Logs to save the coal a turn.
‘Here’s a word to make you wise
When you hear the woodman’s cries;
Never heed his usual tale
That he’s splendid logs for sale
But read these lines and really learn
The proper kinds of logs to burn.
‘Oak logs will warm you well,
If they’re old and dry.
Larch logs of pinewoods smell
But the sparks will fly.
‘Beech logs for Christmas time;
Yew logs heat well;
‘Scotch’ logs it is a crime
For anyone to sell.
‘Birch logs will burn too fast;
Chestnut scarce at all;
Hawthorn logs are good to last
If cut in the fall.
‘Holly logs will burn like wax,
You should burn them green;
Elm logs like smouldering flax,
No flame to be seen.
‘Pear logs and apple logs,
They will scent your room;
Cherry logs across the dogs
Smell like flowers in bloom,
‘But ash logs all smooth and grey
Burn them green or old,
Buy up all that come your way
They’re worth their weight in gold.’
Finally Lady Celia Congreve made a longer and rather more literary version – one which cries out to be made into a song! It was published in The Times on March 2nd 1930
The Firewood Poem
‘These hardwoods burn well and slowly,
Ash, beech, hawthorn oak and holly.
Softwoods flare up quick and fine,
Birch, fir, hazel, larch and pine.
Elm and willow you’ll regret,
‘Chestnut green and sycamore wet.
Beechwood fires are bright and clear,
If the logs are kept a year.
Chestnut’s only good, they say,
If for long ’tis laid away.
But Ash new or Ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold.
‘Birch and fir logs bum too fast,
Blaze up bright and do not last.
It is by the Irish said,
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood bums like churchyard mould,
E’en the very flames are cold.
But Ash green or Ash brown,
Is fit for a queen with golden crown.
‘Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke.
Apple wood will scent your room,
With an incense like perfume.
Oaken logs if dry and old,
Keep away the winter’s cold.
But Ash wet or Ash dry,
A king shall warm his slippers by.
‘Oak logs will warm you well,
That are old and dry.
Logs of pine will sweetly smell,
But the sparks will fly.
Birch logs will burn too fast,
Chestnut scarce at all Sir.
Hawthorn logs are good to last,
That are cut well in the fall sir
‘Holly logs will burn like wax,
You could burn them green.
Elm logs burn like smouldering flax,
With no flame to be seen.
Beech logs for winter time,
Yew logs as well. Sir.
Green elder logs it is a crime,
For any man to sell, Sir.
‘Pear logs and apple logs,
They will scent your room.
And cherry logs across the dogs,
They smell like flowers of broom.
But ash logs smooth and grey,
Buy them green or old, Sir.
And buy up all that come your way,
They’re worth their weight in gold, Sir.
‘”Logs to Burn, Logs to burn, Logs to burn”,
Logs to save the coal a turn.
Here’s a word to make you wise,
When you hear the woodman’s cries.
Never heed his usual tale,
That he has good logs for sale.
But read these lines and really learn,
The proper kinds of logs to burn.’